Nothing More to Say
by bethaboo
Summary: No more fights. No more misunderstandings. No more machinations. No more gossip. Ultimately, there are no more words-only a gaping black void of emptiness that they've created in each other.  A series of Chuck and Blair drabbles/one shots
1. Anatomy of a Reign

**AN: This is a series of drabbles (or one shots-some of them are a bit longer than drabbles) that I wrote based on a song, "Nothing More to Say" by Jessie James. The song's pretty neat, but the lyrics especially grabbed me as being so appropriate for Chuck and Blair. There will be ten chapters in total, each inspired by a section of lyrics from the song. Link to the song is up on my profile-I suggest you listen to it at least once, because it really is a lovely song. Lyrics are at the beginning of each.**

**And if you want to read these, be prepared for some angst. As a joke, I told a friend that I'd titled this "Chuck and Blair's Ten Worst Moments."**

**Thanks to comewhatmay, who is such a wonderful cheerleader, and also to JosieSwan, my beta extraordinare.**

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**Anatomy of a Reign**

_**You used to be my King**_

There were very few things that Blair Cornelia Waldorf depended on, and the social hierarchy of the Upper East Side was near the top of that list. She herself had begun to solidify position at a young age. First, she'd befriended Serena Van der Woodsen and Nathaniel Archibald, both who had pedigrees equal to her own. Blair had then become friends with Charles Bartholomew Bass, an unfortunate and rather disdainful boy who had bucketfuls of brand new, newly-minted money, but not much class.

It had been understood from almost the beginning that Blair and Nate would eventually marry, and she had loved the automatic respect that their relationship had generated. Nate was widely considered the golden prince of the Upper East Side, and by his side, she assumed her own rightful position as his princess.

Once she'd began at Constance-Billard's School for Girls, there had been a brief, bloody, and ultimately successful overthrow of the monarchy, and she'd emerged, with Chuck Bass's help, as the Queen B. Nate, however, had stayed a prince—and not even a very eager one—which had infuriated Blair.

Didn't he understand? She was a _Queen_; he was supposed to ascend to his own position as King. But he hadn't.

Instead, he'd grown sulky and resentful of what he should have embraced and finally, after the debacle with the Captain, Blair had had to face reality. Nate simply wasn't King material. He was sweet, and charming—if you liked your men endearing and rather dim—and definitely one of the handsomest boys on the Upper East Side, but he lacked a certain killer instinct.

Unlike Blair's ascension to Queen, the role of King was filled in a bloodless coup d'etat, with Nate abdicating voluntarily, though she was secretly convinced that he hadn't even known what was going on.

But then, neither had Blair Waldorf, which was inexcusable.

She'd first noticed the difference in the winter of their junior year, when after hosting a party in the school swimming pool, a large portion of their class had been threatened with expulsion. After the assembly, she'd gathered the group on the steps, and in a queenly manner, had clarified the time-honored tradition that had served the courts of Constance-Billard and St. Jude's for decades.

"So we all know how this works?"

"No one talks, no one gets into trouble," Chuck finished for her smoothly, making sure each courtier knew with a single glance that he was deadly serious.

"So who did break in anyway?" Nate interrupted.

Blair only refrained from rolling her eyes because she was asserting her power and it wouldn't do for the Queen to demonstrate how little intelligence she thought Nate had sometimes. But Chuck had reacted differently, casually belittling him with the same flair that she herself often used with those less fortunate than she.

"Guess we don't have to worry about Nate cracking under pressure."

"So are we all agreed?" Blair asked again, pinning each of her girls with a sharp look. If someone confessed, it wouldn't be a Constance minion; she would bet on that much. They all knew they had much more to lose than simply their education.

"Look Blair, I know you have your sights set on Yale, but don't you think this Skull and Bones stuff is a bit much?" Dan asked.

"Maybe. But it works, every time," Blair informed him with a dismissive look.

Besides, if she was going to bet on someone cracking, it would be Dan Humphrey. She wasn't the only one who'd noted the skepticism in his voice, and when the group had gone their separate ways, she'd cornered Chuck in an empty hallway.

"I need to talk to you," she'd said.

But this time it was _his_ eyes pinning _her_—and Blair was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that somehow, without her knowledge, there'd been a power shift at St. Jude's.

"If you're worried about Humphrey, I've got the situation under control," Chuck said, prowling one step too close and nearly trapping her against a wall of lockers. "You worry about your Constance girls, and I'll make sure Brooklyn doesn't squeal."

Her worst fears coalesced into reality; instead of Nate assuming control as she'd hoped for so long that he would, Chuck had taken over instead. Blair wracked her brain, trying to think of a single moment where Chuck had advertised his intentions and she'd missed it, but there was nothing.

The only thing Blair could think of at that moment, with him standing too close, his hair falling in a messy wave across his forehead -as if he'd just come from some girl's bed- was their fateful limo ride. His mouth on hers. His hands on her skin. The feel of the leather under her naked hips—the feel of _him _under her.

Blair shook her head as if she could clear it; as if she could permanently dispose of the memory so she'd never have to revisit it_. Of course_ she could think of nothing. He was Chuck Bass; if he was going to stage a takeover of the throne, he wouldn't publicize it to the one person with enough power to stop him.

"If you think you can actually stop Dan Humphrey, you're more egotistical than I thought you were," Blair said, with a calculated toss of her dark curls.

Chuck's eyes narrowed, his power distilling into one look that spoke of unlimited power, unlimited resources, and maybe, Blair thought with a quiver deep in her stomach, unlimited lust for her.

"I said I'd take care of it," Chuck said coldly. "You've never doubted me before. You should know better than anyone, Princess—I get the job done."

Blair shoved him hard, catching him off balance. "You disgust me," she sneered, but as she walked away, she couldn't help but rail at herself for not seeing this coming. Chuck's little ultimatum over Nate had been bad enough when he'd simply been wantonly creating destruction, but now he truly had the power to carry out what he'd promised.

In fact, he'd have the power to do whatever he wanted, Blair thought with resentment.

If Blair had ruled Constance with a firm hand, Chuck was the iron fist—not only over St. Jude's, but the entire Upper East Side. And when Bart Bass had died the next winter, the transformation of the womanizing, party boy billionaire to the powerhouse of Manhattan was complete.

Blair was still without her King, but now, it wasn't just the position she craved—but the man himself. She'd fought a long, hard, bitter campaign, and in the end, she'd finally forced him to wave the white flag, convincing him to shower her with diamonds, flowers, and most importantly, three words and eight letters. And after that kind of a protracted struggle, she'd expected more both from him and from herself.

It had all started so well—Chuck and Blair destroying uppity models and socialites, twisting Chuck's tarnished reputation for their own purposes; Chuck and Blair moving onto new frontiers to conquer; Chuck and Blair remaining a steadfast pillar of strength they could always fall back on.

And then, suddenly it wasn't strong; _they _weren't strong. In a series of maneuvers that even Chuck and Blair couldn't have foretold, everything but the monarchy had fallen apart.

The Sotheby's auction had started it, and that had been followed up by Blair's own desperation to fit in at NYU and the subsequent kiss she'd wrangled out of Chuck. That had been bad enough, but in her need to prove her worth to him, she'd pushed them both too far when she'd asked for Jack's help.

Chuck had said he'd forgiven her after that incident, but Blair knew deep down, in a place she never went, that he'd never let her in after that. He'd kept his cards close to his chest, and suddenly, it hadn't been Chuck and Blair against the Upper East Side.

It had been Chuck and Blair against each other.

Instead of tearing others down, they'd only managed to destroy themselves. Instead of a King and his Queen stronger together than apart, they'd undermined, manipulated, and ultimately betrayed each other.

In the bloody, cataclysmic aftermath, they were still royalty, but they were a King and a Queen who ruled separately, who believed in the same things but couldn't seem to find a shred of common ground.

And in the end, it was a Queen and a King who met in Paris and divided the spoils of the Upper East Side and the territories of New York. He was still a King—he'd finally realized that he could never be just a Prince—but Chuck Bass's days of being Blair Waldorf's king were, for all intents and purposes, over.

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**AN: Dialogue was taken from episode 1x12, "School Lies."**


	2. A Heart Shaped Bomb

**A Heart-Shaped Bomb**

_**Cut me out a golden heart and threw it in the sea;**_

"We have to stop at Nate's first—he has something of mine that I need," Blair announced to Serena, a victorious, vicious smile on her face. James might not have totally destroyed Chuck yet, but it was still early in the match and she knew just the move that would finish her adversary off.

"Blair," Serena asked while her best friend searched through Nate's closet, "are you sure this is a good idea? Isn't that pin Nate's?"

"It might have been, a long time ago," Blair said recklessly, "but it hasn't been his for awhile now. You know that. Besides, I think he'll appreciate the use it's being put to tonight."

"I doubt it." Serena sounded skeptical.

"If you're going to stand there and do nothing, at least don't attempt to undermine the plan," Blair said impatiently.

"You made Chuck jealous, which I didn't think was even possible. What's the point of continuing this, B?"

"This is why you didn't end up Queen of Constance," Blair said. "No commitment to total destruction of your enemies. Chuck's only momentarily sidelined. I need to strike the kill blow now."

"And you think that giving James the pin is going to do that?"

"Finally," Blair announced triumphantly, emerging from Nate's closet holding a tiny golden heart that had, when she'd been younger and not quite so wise, represented the heart she'd so eagerly bestowed on him. "I thought maybe he'd thrown it away."

"Apparently Nate has a sentimental streak," Serena huffed quietly. "Who knew?"

"I doubt it was sentimentality," Blair corrected, "probably more like forgetfulness. I'm sure he didn't even remember he had it." She glanced down at the pin, its golden finish slightly tarnished, and it seemed too small, too insignificant to play the part she needed it to, but she had no other choice. Chuck had come too close to the truth of James's presence by her side, and he couldn't be allowed to survive, because then he'd know how devastated she was.

During dinner, Blair kept herself together through the sheer will—the need to destroy her enemy stronger than any pain. She'd pinned the heart on James's sleeve, but she couldn't deny she hated herself for using such a once-precious object in this twisted, perverse way. If she'd been stronger, if she hadn't let Chuck in only to have him betray her, it never would have come to this.

But then Chuck had seen the heart, his face going hard and expressionless, and something ugly and terrifying had erupted in her chest, and no glue and no tape and no pins in the world could hold her together.

Without even realizing she was running, she'd left the table and followed him. In that moment, she didn't even know James's name. All she could see were Chuck's eyes, as dark as her own, and there was a familiar devastation mirrored there.

"I know what that pin means to you," Chuck said. "You gave it to Nate the first time you told him you loved him."

Blair didn't understand. She'd been certain that the reason Chuck had betrayed her was because he didn't care about her after all; she'd just been a game to him and she'd been played. But the way he was looking at her now, the way he had looked at the pin on James's sleeve, left her feeling confused.

"And do you really feel the same way about him that you did Nate?"

He was asking her something else, she could see it in the hopeful rise of his voice. How typical of Chuck-to mask what he really wanted to know by asking something else entirely.

"I do." She had to lie. To tell the truth would be to open up Pandora's box all over again. Chuck must never know that from the first kiss in the limo, the pin had always been his.

His to own, and his to throw away.

"I'll see you at school."

Blair lost the battle over her tears as he walked away and they welled in her eyes. How could she have known that the masterful kill stroke that she'd planned for Chuck would instead be the move that destroyed her instead? The pin was a bomb, imploding in on itself, dragging her down with it, pulling her under the waves in an ocean of her own making.

When Blair returned to the table, the sight of it innocuously pinned to James' sweater nearly made her physically sick, and she couldn't wrench it off fast enough.

"Oh my goodness, my pin must have gotten caught on your sweater by mistake," she said, surprising herself by how lighthearted she could sound when her insides were a barren wasteland carpet-bombed by Chuck's betrayal and her own idiocy.

"I didn't feel anything," James said wonderingly.

"Neither did I," Blair said, and it was by no means her first lie or her last—but it was perhaps the most willfully ignorant.

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**AN: Dialogue was taken from episode 2x01, "Summer Kind of Wonderful."**


	3. The Sweetest Irony

**The Sweetest Irony**

_**And oh, look at what's left of you and me;**_

_**Just passing ships with wreckage left from all our misery.**_

Chuck knew the moment he heard her voice that it was all too good to be true.

Throughout his vigil on the roof of the Empire State Building he'd told himself that he would wait—that he would wait long past 7 o'clock, just in case she was somehow delayed or she changed her mind at the last possible moment. But in the end, he'd exited the roof at precisely 7:01 PM, tossing the peonies in the trash, the wrapper destroyed by the way he'd clenched it in his fist as if it was a lifeline he wasn't ready to let go of.

Jenny's appearance had been fortuitous; a twisted, perverse luck derived from the parallel universe that seemed to haunt the Bass men. His fingers and his lips had been numb—in fact, all of him had felt dead. Hollow. Empty. Devoid of emotion completely. As if the idea that he could lose Blair Waldorf forever was too great of a pain to even contemplate.

So instead of contemplating, he'd forced himself to do the one thing that he'd believed was off-limits since that one night at the beginning of junior year. He'd even apologized to Jenny for it once—and he never apologized to anyone, for anything—though, in the end, he thought that taking her virginity after all negated the apology.

Still, he'd told himself as he lay in bed next to Jenny and steadfastly refused to consider the ruin of his life, he was still Chuck Bass. In fact, he'd done the one thing that could reassure him that he was still the man that he'd believed he was—dirty and devious and rotten to the core.

Blair's voice was a sweet, vicious irony; breaking into his thoughts, destroying his carefully planned downward spiral. It was his luck, Chuck could only sneer at himself, that she'd come only _after_ he'd done the one last thing that she could never forgive him for.

"Excuse my confusion," he stuttered, nearly unable to speak because of the panic that Blair might notice Jenny in his bedroom. "I didn't expect to see you tonight… or ever again…" Or else he never would have gone to that darkest of places, would never have followed Jenny into her chamber of horrors.

"Sorry I was so late," she said. God, he wished that she hadn't been late, or that he'd been smarter and stayed. Trusted that she would show up-but he'd never really thought she would. He couldn't believe that he deserved her loyalty after what he'd done to her with his uncle.

And he especially didn't deserve it after what he'd just done with Jenny.

"I waited," he said, even though it was a lie. Even now he was a coward and couldn't tell her that he hadn't waited because he'd believed it was over.

"Dorota went in to labor, she had her baby. I wasn't going to show up, I was resolved not to, every bone tried to slow me, every voice in my head screamed don't . . ."

He understood that insistent inner voice; he'd been hearing it the moment he'd laid a finger on the girl in his room. He'd slept with girls after Blair -but that was only because he was Chuck Bass and that was what he did- but what he'd done with Jenny had been him burning that final bridge.

"But?" Chuck didn't want her to say it. If Blair said it, if she truly, honestly meant that they could be together, it would be even worse because when she found out about Jenny -and it was inevitable that she would- she would end it for good. This second chance was over before it had ever begun.

"...but I didn't listen, I followed my heart because I love you. I can't deny that our path has been complicated, but in the end love makes everything simple."

Except it wasn't simple-the one thing that Chuck had learned since falling in love with Blair Waldorf was that their love affair was a lot of things, but the last thing it could ever be was simple.

He'd played the relieved, attentive boyfriend, though Blair could never know his relief when he'd discovered Jenny missing from his bedroom, but the entire time, he'd known that it was too good to be true. There was too much wreckage, too much trying to pull them apart; everything that happened had pushed them to the breaking point, but Jenny would be the girl that broke Waldorf's will to see this through.

When she told him that the night had never happened, the expression in her eyes as cold as it had been during the betrayal of Serena, of Nathaniel, of her father, Chuck knew that he'd made damn sure there was no going back.

The Titanic was generally considered the greatest shipwreck of all time, but Chuck knew that their relationship—the voyage of the "We're Chuck and Blair; Blair and Chuck"—had not only been doomed from the start, but that unlike the Titanic, there weren't even debris left to search. There was nothing left—the memories erased from her mind the way she purged the unwanted food from her stomach.

In some delightfully, excruciatingly painful way, it was almost a relief; it was as if Chuck could finally admit to himself that there was no more need to try, because whatever he could do, it would never be enough to fill the void that had been left behind.

And then he'd been shot, the bullet tearing through skin and flesh and muscle, and he'd known for sure.

Her ship was still sailing; it was his that had crashed and then incinerated, falling to its final, inevitable resting place.

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**AN: Dialogue was taken from episode 3x22, "Last Tango, Then Paris."**


	4. Hell is Paved in Marble

**AN: I very rarely affect myself emotionally with my own writing; this is one of the few exceptions where something I've written has brought me to tears. This one particular drabble is longer than the others, and on top of that, it's probably one of the few where I took a lot of creative liberty with the storyline that was on the show.**

**However, I would like to add that bulimia is a disease and one that's not easy to "cure." I'd like to see JS and SS address Blair's bulimia again, though I'm not holding my breath. In lieu of that, I give you #4, Hell is Paved in Marble.**

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**Hell is Paved in Marble**

_**The fight goes on with victory;**_

_**While I'm watching my defeat**_

Nobody, not even Dr. Sherman, knew the extent that Blair Waldorf depended on the simplest of freedoms: the ability to eat until she was full to bursting, the ability to excuse herself to the bathroom with polite, charmingly-intonated phrases, the ability to kneel in front of the only throne she'd really ever deserved, and most importantly, the ability to hit that perfect spot at the back of her throat until she felt her stomach empty of all the petty jealousies, the aching insecurities, the empty beliefs that she could ever be good enough.

Eleanor watched, of course, but Blair was certain that she'd become good enough at hiding the evidence that her mother never suspected that she'd never been "cured" of her "little problem." It wasn't Dr. Sherman's fault, Blair thought with fatalistic logic, this was simply who she was. It was what Blair Waldorf did. Stopping would be like bleaching her hair blond and throwing away every headband in her collection. It would be like forsaking the Upper East Side for New Jersey.

But even though it was an integral part of her, and sometimes the most natural, most innate thing she did, Blair had become good at monitoring herself. When she'd first started purging, she'd let the numbness seep too far into her skin and gradually, it'd begun to take control of her. She'd stopped eating normally, and with the blithe glee of someone who'd finally figured out how to live in the role that's been created for them, Blair had let herself go, purging whenever she felt like it. The end of the recklessness had come when she'd finally collapsed in her bedroom, her body exhausted and sick from both too much food and not enough.

Three years later, Blair was now much too smart to let herself purge whenever wanted-at least she'd been before Chuck's final betrayal. With an iron sense of self-control, she'd only permitted herself to do it when there were no options left-when she felt as if she didn't, she would explode into a supernova, burning everyone with the icy fire of her despair.

Blair knew that Serena thought the only relapse she'd experienced was the Thanksgiving after she'd returned to New York. She'd only called Serena because even after making herself sick over and over again, the acid burning her throat until it was raw, she'd still felt out of control.

It was the very first time that Blair had ever purged and not felt better afterwards.

The second time happened in Tuscany, but this time, there was no Serena to help her off the floor, no Serena to gently brush her hair back, no Serena to wash her face of the tears and the vomit.

There was only Blair, a marble floor, and the cell phone that had finally informed her that Chuck wasn't coming after all. The bile had been steadily rising in her throat from his first text message, when she'd still been on the helipad, but she'd needed to believe that he wouldn't betray her, that the speech he'd given at the wedding coupled with his behavior of the last week had meant that he was finally ready to be with her.

Except he hadn't been ready at all.

In the end, it had been an instinctual reaction, the least self-control she'd allowed herself in a year. She'd opened the Gossip Girl blast, expecting to see some tidbit about Serena hiding out in the Hamptons, but instead what she'd seen had sent her careening to the bathroom, the marble cold and hard and unyielding beneath her. She could still taste the bitterness, the slimy, gag-inducing acid as the breakfast she'd eaten on the plane came up. She hadn't even had to find that perfect spot with her fingers; the blast alone had been enough of an inducement, the accompanying picture leaving her sickened and nauseous, desperate for another full stomach so she could rinse and repeat.

**Spotted: Chuck Bass romancing not a familiar brunette, but a strange blonde instead. My sources tell me she's the brand new Mrs. Bass's interior decorator. Looks like Chuck didn't waste any time keeping it in the family. Our sympathies, Miss Waldorf.**

With trembling figures, she'd dialed the hotel phone and with a voice that didn't even sound like hers, had ordered more food than she'd ever purged before, even during the bad times that had sent her to the hospital.

But this time there was no Eleanor to notice she was falling to pieces, no Serena to watch with sad eyes as she left for her "spa week" in upstate New York, no Nate to lie to, no Chuck to send carefully chosen care packages devoid of anything edible.

She wanted to order room service again, screw what it would look like, but when Blair tried to rise to her feet, even to her knees, her legs didn't hold her.

No wonder Chuck had abandoned her, that vengeful, noxious voice inside snapped, she was pitiful and pathetic. Lying on the floor, no strength to get up, to carry on, to survive despite everything she'd lost.

Eventually, after hours had passed, she'd managed to find some buried, hidden well of self-preservation, and with only the fear that she'd travel too far down to ever claw her way back up pushing her, Blair had dragged herself from the bathroom to her bed. She'd slept for sixteen hours, and when she'd woken up, the only evidence of her failure was the faint smell of vomit and the sharp ache of an acid-burned throat.

After Tuscany, Blair's stumbles had begun to coincide more and more frequently with Chuck's transgressions, until now, when even his absence made her long for the familiar release that her practiced fingers could bring.

"Blair, he's changing his name. His landlady said he's on his way to the train station. This is Chuck we're talking about, he really could just disappear," Serena said, acting as if this was the worst thing that could possibly happen.

As far as Blair was concerned, it was the best news she'd had all summer. Maybe if she knew he was gone for good, knew he wasn't ever going to come back, wasn't ever going to hurt her again, she could take a breath and stop—if only for a little while.

Before slipping into the red gown, Blair had knelt over the toilet, noiselessly expelling the tea and pastries she'd just nibbled on. With she and Serena living in such close quarters this summer, she'd had to learn to be quick and quiet. Because the alternative was stopping, and with the Chuck-sized cloud over her head, she couldn't. Not yet.

But if he was gone . . ._really _gone. . .maybe . . .

"If you're so torn up about it, stop him," Blair snapped, hating Serena, hating Chuck, hating everyone who seemed determined, despite all her best intentions, to drag her back down into the darkness.

"You and I both know you're the only one who can do that." And he was the only one who could destroy her. Fate really was a bitch.

"If you'll excuse me, I have a ball to attend." She swept out of the room, but Serena followed, doggedly chasing after her the way she'd clearly been chasing after Chuck all day, Blair couldn't help but think bitterly.

"Blair, he almost died holding onto that ring, and onto the hope of you."

She had told him after Jack, "We both hit rock bottom, Chuck, and we've hit it together. At least we won't be lonely in hell." What Chuck didn't know was that without him, she'd hit the bottom more regularly than when they they'd been a couple.

Just this week, she'd hit rock bottom every single day. Sometimes in the morning and after Serena went to bed.

"I forgave him for something that no one else in the world would ever get over. Then he turned around and did the one thing he knew I could never let go." After all she'd done to prove her love and her loyalty, his transparency and his betrayal were too much to handle—she could purge for hours and never empty it from her stomach. And she had tried.

"But you don't need to forgive him; you don't need to even talk to him again after today. But I know you, and you'll always regret it if you do nothing and let him disappear."

Someday, maybe, Blair would tell Serena about all the toilets in Paris that she had visited, how she was intimately familiar with the restrooms in all the best restaurants, about all the floors she had cried on. And maybe then Serena would understand that the best thing in the world would be for her never to forgive him. Never talk to him again. Pretend that he'd never even existed.

The marble floor was beckoning seductively, the promise of comfort in its cold oblivion, and she didn't want him to let him destroy her as well as himself.

But because she loved him, she could never purge it from her system, no matter how hard her fingers pushed. She would let him try, because he was Chuck Bass, and that meant he was still victorious, even in her defeat.

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**AN: Dialogue was taken from episode 4x02, "Double Identity," though I did refer to scenes in 1x09, "Blair Waldorf Must Pie!" and 1x18, "Much 'I Do' About Nothing."**


	5. Hurricane

**Hurricane**

_**And I've surrendered all that's left of me;**_

_**But you and I won't ever cease,**_

_**If we cannot agree.**_

"I hate you."

Blair thought that if she said it, if she said it out loud, maybe she could convince herself it was actually true. That maybe the words could rebuild the walls that had been falling to pieces all day, ever since they'd signed that ridiculous peace treaty.

Peace? When had peace ever existed between Blair Cornelia Waldorf and Charles Bartholomew Bass? He was right—as much as she loathed admitting it—they could never be friends. Being friends meant polite amicability; social niceties exchanged at society functions.

Not dark eyes pinning her to the ground with love and lust and a million shades in-between.

Not sparks that multiplied into butterflies at the mere brush of his fingers on hers.

So she told him she hated him, because the alternative meant she was still vulnerable, still weak, still pathetically in love with him.

"I've never hated anyone more."

"Every nerve ending in my body is electrified by hatred," she told him, knowing it was a horrible mistake to take even one step closer, but she couldn't help herself—her feet seemed to move without her mind realizing what they were doing. As if they were two magnets drawn together by the laws of nature and the universe. All you had to do was give them a little flip and instead of being repelled, they were undeniably attracted. Black and white, ying and yang, up and down, hot and cold, Chuck and Blair . . .

Blair wondered if perhaps their fight against the inevitable had always been futile.

"There is a fiery pit of hate burning inside me ready to explode."

Blair understood what he meant—except that her feelings weren't a bomb that couldn't be diffused—they were a hurricane pounding away, relentless and inexorable, on walls that were crumbling every second that passed. Her throat was suddenly parched, and she swallowed, feeling her heart pounding, the blood beating hot and thick under her skin.

"So it's settled then."

"We're settled."

It was over the moment he touched her. After all, she'd demanded a "No touching," clause for a reason. Water didn't just seep through the cracks of the crumbling, shaking walls, it exploded, and as she watched his eyes grow wide, as if he hadn't even contemplated doing this unthinkable thing, she thought maybe explosive had been the right term all along.

In the aftermath of the cataclysm, her skin damp against the satiny wood of the piano, her head nestled in the crook of his neck, their perfectly synced heavy breathing unbearably loud in the dark silence of the Waldorf penthouse, Blair couldn't help but contemplate the very thin line between love and hate.

She'd asked Serena once, "How far is too far? Where is the place you can't come back from?"

Serena had tried to tell her that such a place existed—that it definitely existed in conjunction with Jack Bass, and Blair had tried to listen. Had tried to believe.

Had forced herself to accept that doing such a thing, even _thinking _of such a thing, meant that she had slid too far into the dark side to continue loving a man like Chuck Bass.

Just as she could still feel the imprint of his hand from their truce handshake, Blair could still feel the sting of her palm on his face when she'd drawn that line in the sand. Serena had been right; there were depths that you should never plumb. Acts done, even in the name of love, that should be left undone.

Her fingers digging into his skin, his arms wrapped around her as if he could not bear to let her go, Blair was forced to finally admit that Serena had been wrong. Blair had done the unthinkable, had committed the action that should have killed and ruined her love of Chuck Bass forever, but in the end, only the opposite was true.

He was in her blood, and under her skin, and buried so deeply inside her that she could no longer figure out where she left off and he began.

"I . . ." Chuck seemed speechless, and Blair thought he might say the one thing that would bring her down once and for all, so she finished his sentence the only way she could.

"I still hate you," she murmured against his skin, the words an unholy benediction to a union that should have ended once and for all.

"I'll always hate you," Chuck murmured into the damp curtain of her hair, and Blair couldn't help but wonder how long before they ceased being such flagrant liars.

Before they ceased pretending that while their minds and bodies might disagree, their souls had never been in anything but perfect, unadulterated accord.

"Hate me again," Blair breathed out, and she didn't miss the way his fingers tightened on her flesh, the way her own legs pulled him in closer.

Lies, misunderstandings, disagreements—all that faded to the back of her mind—as lips and teeth and hands began to tell her the truth all over again.

* * *

**AN: Dialogue taken from 3x17, "Inglorious Bassterds" and 4x07, "War at the Roses."**


	6. A Royal Assassination

**A Royal Assassination**

_**There's nothing left to feel**_

_**When all I see is rivalry**_

_**Across this battlefield**_

There was a common misconception that the Queen B's ultimate enemy, the one person able to match her move for move, battle for battle, war for war, was her best friend Serena.

But Blair Waldorf knew better.

The real enemy wasn't Serena. Doing battle with Serena was like fighting off a pesky fly that after a few minutes grew bored or distracted or simply died from sheer exhaustion. Serena could be tough for a little while, but she had no staying power. She also tended to shy away from the kind of kill blows that could end battles, could end wars, could end the conversation once and for as to who was better. Blair wasn't sure if that was because she was Serena and it just wasn't in her nature or if she held back because she wasn't willing to alienate one of the few constants in her life.

Blair was intimately familiar with the kill blow, she relished it, she delighted in the power she could hold over another person. It was just who she was, and at some point, she'd stopped being ashamed or terrified of how she was so different than her best friend. She was never going to be a million feet tall or look good with a lion's mane of blond hair, or deign to show most of her assets on every occasion. Serena, Blair thought uncharitably, also had a rather tasteless partiality for sequins that she herself could never condone.

Instead, the true enemy was the one man who could destroy her with a few choice words; the one man who could match wits and battle strategy like a chess master; the one man who could read her every thought, almost before she'd even conceived it.

Chuck Bass.

It was difficult formulating a battle plan against someone who knew you better than you knew yourself—but that just added spice to life and made the victory at the end even sweeter.

Still, occasionally there wasn't a victory, and Blair was forced to watch as Chuck's smirk grew insufferably broader. Today was apparently one of those times.

"Well, well, look who's back on top. I wonder how that happened," he paused (merely for dramatic effect—but then she'd originated that hanging pause where the victor held the victim's dignity and pride in their grimy hands and it annoyed her that he would steal it for himself). "Oh wait, I know exactly how that happened."

Of course he did. He'd been the puppeteer behind the scenes, manipulating the situation so that Serena would rise from the ashes of her breakup with Dan and decide that (at least for today) she wanted the Constance throne for herself. And Blair also knew that it hadn't been because Chuck was a loving, kind, sweet brother who only wanted to see his sister achieve the best.

It had been about her. It was, after all, always about her.

* * *

It was always about her. Of course, nobody knew that except for Blair herself. Strangely enough, nobody suspected him of lurking around in corners, manipulating the situation to his benefit because hiding in the shadows was what Chuck Bass had been doing since the very beginning. Only then he'd done it for purely hedonistic reasons, and now he had a goal, an endgame. Destroy Blair Waldorf. Destroy her pride. Destroy her happiness. Destroy her ability to demand three words, eight letters from him. Destroy her ability to walk away.

Because nobody walked away from Chuck Bass and lived to tell about it.

It should have given him some satisfaction to see his plan come to such perfect fruition, but it didn't. Still, he had a role to play and it was one that he could play to perfection.

"Jealousy is a powerful emotion," he told the nameless, faceless little nobody that he'd used and was now throwing away like so much trash. She thought, because she didn't really _think_, that the jealousy he was referring to was Serena's petty vendetta against Dan, but all Chuck could see was Blair leaving with the Count. Blair kissing the Count. Blair rejecting him. And all for what? Because he couldn't say a few stupid words? He didn't see her saying them either.

"I had to create a monster to dethrone a Queen," he explained further, neglecting to mention that the monster wasn't Serena, but himself. He'd created a new Chuck Bass in the image of the woman he loved, and he would show her no mercy—which was exactly as much as she'd shown him.

"Why do you care who's queen of a high school?"

"I have my reasons."

It wasn't a lie. He did have his reasons, and they came roaring back to life as he stood there, watching Blair and Serena's power struggle play out in front of him—the man who'd manipulated them into that position in the first place.

Still, he'd expected to feel better, to feel less. . .empty now that he'd achieved his goal. But all he felt still was this gnawing, aching void. He wasn't happy, he wasn't even really victorious. What happened the cliché that victories were sweet?

They weren't sweet at all—they were more bittersweet. Like the sharpest lemon instead of the ripest cherry.

Blair glided towards him, confusion still on her face, but Chuck knew how smart she was. She would put two and two together, probably even without a few helpful hints, but because he was so concerned for her welfare, he'd just nudge her along the right path.

His path.

As comprehension dawned across her beautiful face, Chuck still didn't understand why he didn't feel _better_. This should have been pinnacle of the entire operation, but all he felt was that aching hole in his chest.

Instead of gloating, all Chuck wanted to do was pull Blair close and comfort her. Maybe even let her shed a few tears on his blazer, which the tailor had just sent over last week. He wanted to pull that ridiculous headband from her hair (as if an accessory was what gave her the right to be called Queen—royalty was in her blood and her bones and the eternally prideful way she held her chin), and let the cool, soft waves of her hair run through his fingers. He wanted to unbutton that high-necked blouse and find the real Blair underneath. The real Blair that she'd only ever shown to him.

He should feel everything right now, yet all he could feel was nothing. Victory was hollow, empty, ultimately meaningless. It tasted like ash in his mouth as she walked away from him yet again.

It didn't hit him until that moment, until her back was turned and she was walking away—how could he have ever believed that destroying Blair Waldorf, that taking away the one thing that mattered most to her would stop her from leaving? Typically, Chuck realized with dull dread, he'd made a massive error in judgment. He'd let his wretched pride take over and plot this without one thought to what it could really gain him in return.

She would never turn to him now, not when he was the instrument of her defeat. She would only sit across from him in class, refusing to meet his gaze and never answering his phone calls. Ignoring him. Denying to herself that she'd ever cared for him. Pretending that they weren't inevitable.

Even when they both knew better.

* * *

**AN: Dialogue taken from 2x04, "The Ex-Files."**


	7. In the Heat of the Night

**In the Heat of the Night**

**_But black and white,_**

**_and dark as night_**

**_is all we've ever been._**

**_

* * *

_**

Sweat pooled and condensed, leaving pin prinks of moisture on her skin like tiny magnifying glasses into her soul, into everything that was hidden in the velvet dark of the blackest night.

Blair knew one thing absolutely; a certainty that was as sure as the rising and setting of the sun.

Charles Bartholomew Bass was incapable of change.

Some men could shift identities, change the very chemical composition of their makeup as easily as throwing a coat on or shedding a sweater. Chuck, with the exacting decisiveness of his forceful, powerful personality, could never be anyone different than who he was.

He could never pretend to be a Lord—perhaps because he could only be a King.

She told Marcus later that she'd known. She confessed, in front of everyone she knew, and everyone she desired to impress, that she'd realized the moment he touched her, kissed her, that it was not the Lord, but the King instead.

"I knew it was him."

She'd lied.

The British accent, though technically competent enough, fit on Chuck so poorly that it was as if he'd changed into Dan Humphrey's plebian, bargain basement wardrobe. The vowels lay thick and heavy and wrong on his tongue, and Blair wanted him to spit them out, to defile them, to stop pretending to be someone that he wasn't because she didn't want him to be Lord Marcus. She wanted him only to be completely and utterly himself.

Still, his words, even in the accent, paralyzed her. She was rooted to the floor, her voice silent in her throat, the fight she had carried on for weeks essentially over. Once he truly came for her—and she had known the moment he'd prowled into her party that he had—nothing would stop him.

Especially not her.

She was not even sure now, the air conditioner freezing the sweat dry on her skin, the cold air clearing drowsy, heated fantasy she'd been in only moments earlier, who reached for who.

It only mattered that he was here, and he was here for her.

As he walked down the staircase later, the truth of what had occurred in that midnight dark room revealed to all, she wanted to tell him that she had known the moment he had traced is finger over her damp skin that her walls would crumble into dust tonight. That she would stand on the top of the highest tower, wave her white flag of surrender, and let them.

But his eyes, burning dark with lust or anger or perhaps a combination of both, stopped her. After all, he was Chuck Bass. He did not apologize, he did not admit defeat. He was uniquely himself. Most importantly, unlike Lord Marcus, he didn't need the camouflage of another's skin to win her.

He had only to beckon to her, the flimsiest excuse for a charade not even concealing his identity, and like Pavlov's dog, she would concede to his every wish, his every demand.

It was the sting of her wounded pride that forced her into Marcus' arms, into his dull embrace, and as she kissed him, she began to wonder if perhaps resistance was ultimately futile.

* * *

"Just because you're poorly dressed doesn't mean you're not Chuck Bass," she told him, a memory of that dark night resurfacing as she stared at the man she loved—cane and Dan Humphrey vest and all.

Blair could not understand. Couldn't he see that his visage of poverty was slippery and practically transparent? She could nearly see it slide off him right now, could see right through it. It astounded her that anyone with his ultimate command, with the power in his eyes and in the curve of his jaw and the tone of voice he uses, could ever be known as Henry Prince.

He wasn't a Lord or a Prince. Blair wanted to know when he'd stop fighting the fact that with Bart's death, he officially earned the mantle of the King of Manhattan. Avoiding the position didn't mean it wasn't who he was.

She watched as he returned, tried to be Chuck Bass, King of Philanthropy, consort to the Lady Eva, and couldn't comprehend why everyone was so eager to trumpet his extraordinary alterations.

He had not changed. He was no different. The new visage was not any more successful than his British accent had been years ago. Even more disturbing to Blair was the fact that unlike the accent, he truly believed in this particular charade.

But she knew better than anyone the chore of trying to be someone that you are not, and though he concealed it well, he could never hide from her that the ill-fitting edges of the act chafed.

Chuck Bass never walked soberly through parties, a blonde gallantly on his arm and a glass of soda water with a sliver of lime in his hand. The Chuck Bass Blair was as familiar with as the skin she herself inhabited, had had every intention of kicking out every inhabitant at a shelter during Christmas. He didn't blink as he sold her for a hotel, as he deflowered her eternal nemesis. Didn't hesitate as he rejected her and her love more times than Blair cared to remember.

But as the days slipped away, and he fell further into the mesmerizing web of transformation, Blair knew desperation. Not for him—no, never for him. Never, ever again. But for the comfortable reality of the man she knew and had loved so desperately, so completely.

She missed his smirk, his expression as he undressed her with his eyes (whether it was appropriate or not), the scent of scotch as he entered a room, the swagger that told her and everyone else that he owned whatever the fuck he deigned to touch.

The woman was stealing that from him—from her —and Blair could not bear to watch as Eva effectively neutered him, slowly eliminating everything that made Chuck Chuck.

Blair found she could not allow Chuck's dark, sometimes black, light to be stolen from him. Often Blair had hated the darkness inside him, wishing she could open a window and let the sun in, but she would never have made him into something he was not. She'd understood that when she chose to be his that he was Chuck Bass.

Between the events of last spring and the near-death experience he'd been forced to deal with, Blair could only ascertain that somehow he had given Eva the reigns to his existence, and she had no choice but to fight her for them—even if he would not fight for them himself. Blair had always saved him, even when he had never wanted to be saved.

Desperation drove her, in essence forced her to tell the lie. The words dripped from between her lips, poisonous and needy.

"Or Eva did. The night she found you. The night she made you her mark."

Blair rarely lied; the trouble she brewed was often more effective with the truth. She wondered the moment she told him if it was all a mistake. If perhaps he would have been happier with Eva. But the moment was dead, long gone, before Blair decided she was selflessly saving him, but there was still a tiny part of her that could not bear to see anyone else occupying her place at his side.

When he came for her that night, even after the cruelty he had so casually tossed her direction, Blair was sure he was Chuck Bass yet again.

Chuck Bass come to claim her the way he had on that darkest night.

They had only ever been enemies or lovers. Black or white. In the aching chill of winter or the sweltering heat of the night.

Blair felt certain that nothing could get in the way this time, that with Eva gone, with her pride already obliterated, there was only them. Chuck and Blair. Blair and Chuck.

But she had forgotten the downfall of that night, of the night that Chuck had realized he could never be Lord Marcus, could never occupy his skin, and she had forgotten his own wounded pride.

"I need to know why. Is it possible you still love me?

She had also forgotten her own. Her own that pricked when he believed he could just waltz in here, the swagger back in his step—the swagger she had lied to force him to re-discover—and everything broke down inside of her.

Every falsehood she had told to Serena, to Nate, to Dorota, to Eva.

To Chuck himself.

She was not ready to let him go, but even as the King, she still wasn't ready to claim him.

"How could I still love you after what you did?"

Blair saw his dark eyes burn, coal embers in his handsome face. His grimace was much the same now as it had been then. Pride wounded, back to the corner, desperate to prove that he didn't need her after all. And this time, as last time, she felt the same.

Except she had forgotten in the heat of the battle the man she had successfully resurrected.

He was not a Prince. Not a Lord. He was Chuck Bass.

"So you did it just to hurt me. Eva made me into someone I was proud to be, but you just brought back my worst self. This means war. Me versus you. No limits."

And Chuck Bass was a twisted son of a bitch.

* * *

**AN: Dialogue taken from 2x04, "The Dark Night" and 4x04, "A Touch of Eva."**


	8. The Road Not Taken

**The Road Not Taken**

**_And I tried asking for time for the healing_**

**_but you and I could never see past the pain._**

**_

* * *

_**

They were always waiting.

Blair sometimes thought it was interminable, this waiting, the postponing of their inevitable reunion.

The first time, it had been because of Chuck.

"I'd rather wait, and maybe in the future . . ."

She hadn't understood what he'd meant then, and she didn't understand it now. Couldn't possibly comprehend that delaying meant anything other than rejecting the desire to have and to hold something that you couldn't even enclose in your hand. She knew because she'd tried, and all she'd gotten for her trouble was pain.

Or perhaps it was excruciating pleasure instead. Blair was never quite sure. Maybe identifying the emotion went hand in hand with understanding it, because when he'd leaned against the doorjamb, the evening a wreck from the moment he'd appeared on the rooftop, and told her they needed to wait, she hadn't understood.

"What we like is the game. Without it, I'm not sure how long we'd last."

He stood there, so earnestly serious, as sober and contemplative as Chuck Bass ever was, and she'd known that he'd meant what he'd said first.

"Just because we can't say those three words doesn't mean they aren't true."

What he _didn't _understand was that she could say them, she was desperate, dying, nearly tripping over her feet to say three words, eight letters, and only to him—to finally declare to the world that she, Blair Waldorf, had made her choice and she wasn't ever going back. What she thought when she heard him say that they'd be boring, commonplace, mediocre was that he hadn't made his decision yet. Blair understood this—if only because she herself had gone through the exact same thing after realizing that for her, the train stopped at the tip of Chuck Bass' perfectly shined Gucci loafers.

She had agonized the first night she had understood what it would mean to truly love a man like Chuck. To truly love _Chuck_.

The world and Nate had only just found out their secret, and she'd spent the day running from the pain and the humiliation of her hidden love revealed. She'd thought, naively perhaps, that he'd be _thrilled _to see her schooled—but not as thrilled as the fact that she and Nate were done for good and he'd be able to have her back.

And she'd be able to have him back, which was a prospect she'd never anticipated but could not longer deny. He loved her, she'd thought as she'd opened the glass door into the bar where he sat, alone, with only a tumbler of scotch in front of him. He _had _to love her. Loved her in a way that Nate Archibald never had. Nothing else made sense. Not his jealousy of Nate _and _Carter. Not his studied nonchalance that burned to ash the moment their eyes met. Not the fact that he'd allowed her to keep their entire association secret, when she'd knew how much he'd normally boast about it.

Blair had sat down, cautiously, not wanting to spook the horse before it got out of the stable, but her butt had barely brushed the barstool before she'd realized that the horse was long gone.

Or maybe it was that she'd realized the horse wasn't him, but her instead.

"I'll try to be more succinct," he'd said with relish, nearly savoring the cruel, cold way he broke her, demolished her hopes and her dreams and all the pretty rainbows she'd painted in the sky when she'd finally admitted to herself that as humiliated as she was that the world knew her secret, it didn't compare to the freedom to finally allow herself to be who she wanted, "you held a certain fascination for me once, when you were beautiful, delicate, untouched. But now you're like one of the Arabians my father used to own. Rode hard and put away wet. I don't want you anymore and I don't see why anyone would."

He might have loved her once, but she'd been so certain that he didn't any longer.

That night was only one of a long line of nights—and days, and even afternoons—when he'd asserted that he was ready for her, ready for what could happen between them, only for Blair to discover that he'd lied. Either to her, or to himself, she wasn't sure, and she couldn't decide if the distinction even mattered. In the end, the story always ended the same way.

Her. Crying in the bathroom, on the floor. Sometimes followed by a tray of desserts, followed by an after-dinner aperitif over the toilet.

Blair had never thought until this moment, when he reached down, decision made that he couldn't make a decision, his fingers lacing so sadly with hers, the tears she could nearly taste in his final kiss, that he truly regretted his ability to give her what she needed. And that's when she understood, comprehended entirely, that he did in fact love her.

Though without a commitment or even the hint of one, Blair honestly wasn't sure that mattered. Love was only love, after all. If he couldn't show her, then what was the point?

All through that difficult winter, and then the even more difficult spring, she had wondered. Why, if faced with the prospect of something so deliriously wonderful, would you make the choice to wait?

She understood now. Understood in a way she never had before when she was young. Sometimes you waited, paused in the reckless pursuit of something flawless, something that nearly made your heart stop beating, and then made it start again, because you knew if you kept going, it would only end in disaster.

Sometimes, you made a decision to postpone heaven so you could be sure you could get there first.

The silk of her slip felt icy cold against her skin and she shivered in the late fall air, the hint of rain or maybe even snow on the breeze.

"I'm sorry, but I have to be Blair Waldorf before I can be Chuck Bass' girlfriend." The undeniable truth hit her as she said it, and though she couldn't be sure, Blair wondered if this was how he'd felt when he'd told her so long ago that they had to wait, when she'd looked up at him with teary eyes, begging him to reconsider.

He was doing it now—she could see the love for her all over his face, nearly seeping out of his pores. But she couldn't stop. She wouldn't. Because if she didn't walk away now, there was no hope for them. The tantalizing promise of so much utter bliss would be destroyed before it could ever be achieved.

"I love you." At least, Blair thought as he willed her to change her mind, they'd gotten past the agony of actually saying the three words, eight letters, but just as before, love was still only love.

"I love you too." But she said it anyway, because she couldn't leave him wondering the same he'd left her so many times before. It might not help the pain, but there was some comfort in those words they'd struggled to find for so long. "I don't expect you to wait," she added, but hoping against hope that he would. She'd waited for him, and it hadn't been easy. But she was Blair Waldorf and he was Chuck Bass. They were brave, fearless. They did the hard thing that nobody else could do.

"Sometimes, if two people are meant to be together, eventually they'll find their way back.

They always had. Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck. Like two magnets, drawn together by the forces of nature, even when such attraction made no logical sense. When there was no reason on earth for it to still be true.

"Do you really believe that?"

"I do." He sounded so unbearably certain, and Blair fought a sudden urge to argue with him, to insist that it was nearly suicide for him to believe in her so completely. To hold on, despite all odds, but then she remembered all those hopeless moments that she'd waited for him despite her better judgment and what everyone in her life told her was logical.

She'd waited once. Now it was his turn.

"I do."

Someday, far in a future that she couldn't see, but could only imagine because nothing else could be at the end of this interminable road, they'd stand in front of another church and say those same vows.

But that was someday, and this was today, so she turned and left him at the altar, praying for her safe return.

* * *

**AN: Dialogue taken from 1x13, "A Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate," 2x08, "Pret-a-Poor-J," and 4x09, "The Witches of Bushwick."**


End file.
